Effective Practice Updates

I have just attended Community Care Live 2014. It was incredibly refreshing simply to be in an environment where people were constantly discussing, thinking, arguing and considering. I also had the chance to hear some things that really struck me. Here are five of them:

“True to her word”

In a workshop by Buckinghamshire about prevention, one of the speakers shared a case study of how a community practice worker had helped a family. They described her as “true to her word”.... Read full article

I have just spent 24 hours as part of a support team for a 125 mile canoe endurance event. Our canoeists paddled from Devizes to Westminster, through the day and night, in the rain and cold, climbing out of the canal for 77 locks, and racing to catch the tide that would take them the last 18 miles. I learned a lot about how to help keep people going under extremely difficult conditions, and I think that much of this is relevant to those who are supporting social care practitioners. So here... Read full article

Two reports have recently been published about social work education. Sir Martin Narey’s report considers education for social workers in children’s services and Professor David Croisdale-Appleby’s review examines social work education in general but with a focus on adults’ services.

The debate on what social workers should do and how to prepare them for it is complex and changing. This is because it rests on two separate questions:

Research shows that professional concerns often drown out what people think is important in their own lives. The tool ‘Sorting important to and important for’ helps to make their voices clear.

I recently did some training with practitioners and managers, who work in adult social care in a local authority. The training was on effective recording. One of the main aims was to ensure that when people wrote about someone, their voice was really evident in the record.

When things go wrong in social care, we look for poor decisions. Good leaders and good professionals should get things right. When things go wrong, leaders get blamed and they resign; professionals get blamed and they get sick.

Writing a handbook for practitioners on Making Good Decisions gave me the chance to really think about what a good decision is. A good decision is not the same as a decision that turns out ‘right’. In the complex, uncertain world that social care inhabits,... Read full article

The draft Care and Support bill states that the aim of social care is to promote well-being. Its implementation will include new national eligibility criteria. The government is currently seeking views on a discussion document for National Minimum Eligibility Criteria. Unfortunately, as currently drafted, these criteria fail to fully support the aim of promoting well-being, and risk a generation of confusion in social care practice.

Social care services are facing increasing demand and expectations, alongside reducing resources. The draft Care and Support Bill makes it a statutory duty for local authorities to provide services or take other steps to prevent, reduce or delay needs for care and support. The growing integration agenda focuses on the need for proactive, joined-up services, and funding for integration is likely to be linked to services being able... Read full article

The new Care Bill and the aim of making integrated care the norm add increased emphasis to the need for good, consistent assessment. There is likely to be more social care assessment activity due to greater equality for carers and the new funding arrangements, together with a wider range of roles in more diverse agencies undertaking assessments. The answer to what makes a trustworthy assessment is crucial to achieving proportionality, reducing duplication and, consequently, being efficient... Read full article

The College of Social Work (TCSW) has just finished a consultation with members on its draft document on the roles and tasks that require social workers.

This is an important step in the discussion about the value of social work that has been going on through initiatives like TCSW’s Business case for social work with adults and Research in Practice for Adults’ Manifesto on the value of adult social work.